This invention relates to dental equipment and, more particularly, to enhancements to dental scaler devices.
Dental work is performed using a variety of tools. Tools such as strippers, forceps, tweezers, pliers, and scalers, are simple and effective for cleaning and maintaining dental work.
Dental scalers, for example, come in a variety of forms. Used to scrape plaque, stains, and bacterial debris from teeth, scalers may include a tip with a curved hook, a hoe-shaped tip, and so on. Some scaler tips are for general surface cleaning, while other tips are useful for particular cleaning jobs, such as scraping near the gum line. In addition to the variety of tip types, tips may also be available in many different sizes.
Manually-operated dental scrapers are common. Recently, however, dental scrapers have entered the realm of high technology. Automatic dental scalers, also know as ultrasonic scalers, for example, automatically resonate a tip connected to an insert in a handpiece at a high frequency to remove plaque from teeth.
The ultrasonic scalers include a generator that electrically causes the scaling tip to vibrate at a very high rate. An alternating current is passed through an induction coil in a handpiece that induces vibration of the magnetostrictive element of an insert in the handpiece. The vibration is transmitted to the tip by a velocity transducer on the end of the magnetostrictive element. The vibration may cause the tip to move elliptically, in a curved linear fashion, or in a “figure eight” pattern.
Because of the high rate of tip vibration, the high-speed ultrasonic scalers generate a significant amount of heat. Accordingly, ultrasonic scalers operate with a water jet in the tip. The water cools the magnetostrictive element and the tip, as well as the tooth being treated, while the scaler operates.
The tip, for example, may vibrate 25,000 times per second (25 KHz). Some tips operate at a lower frequency, while other tips operate at a higher one. If a tip is connected to a generator and handpiece/insert that operate at the improper frequency, the tip does not operate correctly, or can break during operation.
Typically, the generator portion of the ultrasonic scaler produces a single frequency range, to support a single handpiece/insert that operates at that frequency range. To use a handpiece/insert that operates at a different frequency range, a different generator is used. To use handpiece/inserts of different frequencies associated generators for each must be obtained.
Further, given the variety of tip types and sizes, the task of identifying that tips can operate at which frequency ranges may be problematic for the dental professional.
Thus, there is a need to provide an ultrasonic dental scaler that operates at multiple frequencies for multiple handpieces.